From Aristotle to analyst: New researcher makes impact on iCubed team

March 13, 2014Barbara Muhitch

With its ever-expanding army of researchers, iCubed is proud to name the newest member of the team, Ryan Tassone, as its Featured Researcher of the Month for March 2014.

Ryan is a project manager and data analyst at iCubed where he assists Dr. Rui Liu in her work on the H7N9 flu project. He also manages several neglected tropical diseases projects including leishmania and malaria. One of Ryan’s ongoing projects is the creation and launching of a peptide database which he hopes will be up and running in the near future.

Ryan’s road to iCubed is somewhat different than those of his colleagues. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Rhode Island College in 2005. Later, he enrolled in the University of Rhode Island’s manufacturing certificate program, completing the course in 2007. In 2008, Ryan landed an internship at EpiVax, Inc. where he met company CEO and iCubed Director, Dr. Annie De Groot. After spending nearly six years at EpiVax, Ryan made the move to iCubed in February.

Prior to his time with EpiVax and iCubed, Ryan says his only experience in a laboratory was making eyeglasses for LensCrafters. Nowadays, Ryan’s ability to make things clearer is a vital part of his job at iCubed. If anyone at the institute needs help making better, more informative representations of their data, Ryan is their go-to employee.

With his diverse background and adaptability, Ryan is quickly showing that he’s an important part of the team and has an ability to solve problems quickly, whatever they may pop up.